Strategies

Build, strengthen, and maintain social networks that provide supportive relationships for behavior change through walking groups or other community-based interventions

Enhance streetscapes with greater sidewalk coverage and walkway connectivity, street crossing safety features, traffic calming measures, and other design elements

Provide at-risk expectant parents and families with young children with information, support, and training regarding child health, development, and care from prenatal stages through early childhood via trained home visitors

Provide patients with prescriptions for exercise plans, often accompanied by progress checks at office visits, counseling, activity logs, and exercise testing

Train volunteers, professionals, or paraprofessionals to help residents assess and reduce environmental home health risks and recommend low cost changes (e.g., improved ventilation, integrated pest management, etc.)

Modify the school lunch food environment or school lunch schedules by increasing the convenience of healthy foods, providing healthy options, or ensuring students have enough time to eat

Provide rapid access to permanent housing and support (e.g., crisis intervention, needs assessment, case management), usually for chronically homeless individuals with persistent mental illness or substance abuse issues

Provide funding, primarily to families with low or middle incomes, to repair, improve, or modernize dwellings and remove health or safety hazards

Teach behavioral skills that can help individuals incorporate physical activity into their daily routines

Support a four-tiered approach to indoor pest control that minimizes potential hazards to people, property, and the environment

Eliminate lead-based paint and contaminated dust by removing or encapsulating lead paint, or removing lead painted fixtures and surfaces

Support a combination of land uses (e.g., residential, commercial, recreational) in development initiatives, often through zoning regulations or Smart Growth initiatives

Modify local environments to support physical activity, increase access to new or existing facilities for physical activity, or build new facilities

Introduce or expand transportation options that are available to the public and run on a scheduled timetable (e.g., buses, trains, ferries, rapid transit, etc.)

Promote walking and biking to school through education, incentives, and environmental changes; often called SRTS

Support programs to provide students with a nutritious breakfast in the cafeteria, from grab and go carts in hallways, or in classrooms

Establish designated areas where students can garden with guidance, often with nutrition and food preparation lessons and opportunities for taste tasting and hands-on learning

Expand or enhance school-based physical education (PE) by lengthening existing classes, increasing physical activity during class, adding new PE classes, etc.

Encourage children to spend time away from TV and other stationary screen media, often as part of a multi-faceted effort to increase physical activity and improve nutrition

Modify the built environment to affect traffic speed and patterns via speed humps, pedestrian center crossing islands, roundabouts, etc.

Increase the number of registered voters through initiatives that reduce barriers and expand accessibility, including automatic voter registration (AVR), voter registration drives, easing voter registration requirements, and expanding registration sites

Increase voter turnout through get-out-the-vote campaigns and initiatives to make voting more convenient such as allowing early in-person voting, vote-by-mail, or expanding polling locations and hours

Arrange active transportation with a fixed route, designated stops, and pick up times when children can walk to school with adult chaperones

Provide assistance to families with low incomes to make their homes more energy efficient and to permanently reduce their energy bills

Reform zoning regulations to remove exclusionary zoning codes, address physical environment aesthetics and safety, street continuity and connectivity, residential density, and mixed-use development, etc.